Box Office Report: July 26, 2013: THE WOLVERINE Grosses $4 Million

The Wolverine Grosses $4 Million at late night screenings. Fox and Marvel’s The Wolverine earned a strong $4 million as it opened in North America yesterday, Thursday July 26th at 10:00pm. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the movie is on course for a $60 to $70 million range opening weekend. It should be noted that the film opened at 10:00pm versus the normal summer Thursday opening of 7:00pm.

The prequel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, opened a solid weekend of $85 million in 2009 four years ago in early May and grossed $373.1 million worldwide.

Comparisons can be drawn to the earlier summer film, World War Z, starring Brad Pitt that grossed $3.6 million dollars Thursday night and totaled with weekend earnings around $66 million dollars.

Wolverine reunites director James Mangold with Hugh Jackman. The two previously worked together on the romantic adventure Kate & Leopold in 2001.

It is unclear if the relationship to previous X-Men films will serve as a boost or downfall of the sequel Wolverine film. RottenTomatoes.com currently rates the film with 67% and audiences at 81% ratings. The review points out a weak third act but continues to keep a loyal following from Marvel fans.

(Spoilers): Set sometime after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand, Logan (Jackman) has renounced the superhero agenda. He lives as a recluse in the Yukon. The life of hiding is shattered when a Japanese man he once saved during the war requests to become immortal. Logan is also asked to protect this man’s granddaughter, Mariko Yashida (Tao Okamoto). Okamoto makes her screen debut, best known as a famous Japanese fashion model and was the face of Ralph Lauren. (End Spoilers).

The Wolverine is the only large commercial film opening this weekend. The only carry-over competition could be the horror film The Conjuring, which had a strong opening weekend. Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen’s newest film starring Cate Blanchett premieres this weekend, distributed through Sony Picture Classics. The film begins its limited run in six theaters in New York and Los Angeles. CBS Film’s raunchy comedy, The Do To List, starring Aubrey Plaza also opens in limited venues just shy of 600 theaters.

Fruitvale Station, (based on the true story of Oscar Grant) both the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic feature and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, will expand nationwide. The Sundance favorite is distributed by The Weinstein Company and will expand from a humble 34 theaters into more than 1,000 for its third weekend. It has earned $1.3 million to date.

The Way, Way Back will also see a nationwide expansion this weekend after a limited opening in 304 theaters. It will expand to over 800 theaters. Directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who wrote the script for The Descendants, the picture has earned a domestic take of $4.6 million to date.

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